Drawing upon decades of experience, RAND provides research services, systematic analysis, and innovative thinking to a global clientele that includes government agencies, foundations, and private-sector firms.

The Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS.edu) is the largest public policy Ph.D. program in the nation and the only program based at an independent public policy research organization—the RAND Corporation.

Student Spotlight

Evaluation and Impact Measurement Clients

International

Evaluation and Impact Measurement (EIM) researchers have worked on a number of projects focusing on conceptualising and improving governance for the World Bank and the OECD. The projects for the World Bank have included:

designing toolkits to improve governance in social protection systems in Southeast Asia; and

and developing frameworks that help understand how ICTs contribute to human development outcomes.

Our work with the OECD has focused on measuring changes and improvements in the civil service of East, Central and Southeast European countries that have either acceded to the European Union or are in the process of doing so. This work, together with the University of Nottingham, included the largest survey of civil servants undertaken in these regions.

EIM researchers also undertake international work for UK clients. They recently won a three year ESRC/DFiD grant with the Institute for Fiscal Studies to look at the effectiveness of cash conditional transfer programmes, particularly looking at the relationship between programme administration and supply of services and specific human development outcomes.

European

EIM researchers have had a long history of working with the European Commission, in particular with DG SANCO, DG EMPL, and European agencies. Work has included ex-ante, ex-post and prospective evaluations as well as providing research support.

Ex-ante approaches include for instance a number of regulatory impact assessments for DG SANCO, such as assessments of revisions in alcohol, tobacco, food labelling, organ donation, and human tissues. More recent evaluation work has taken place under a framework contract with DG JUST which combines the expertise of EIM researchers with the substantive experience of RAND Europe's Communities, Safety, and Justice team.

EIM researchers have undertaken a number of ex-post evaluations of complex programmes such as the European public health programme and work looking at the effectiveness of the impact assessment system. Prospective work included looking at policy priorities in social policy until 2020 for DG EMPL. An example of research support is the recent project to analyse the ESENER survey of health and safety in the European workplace for the European Health and Safety Agency (ESHA).

National

EIM researchers conduct work on and for UK Government. RAND Europe has had a long-standing strategic partnership with the UK National Audit Office, which is managed by EIM researchers. Work included over sixty contributions to 'value for money' reports conducted by the NAO on policy areas from defence to health. A recent report looks at how Department of Health (DH) information campaigns influence behaviour.

Our work for the UK government mostly consists of collaborative work in area of health policy. EIM researchers work closely with the Health and Healthcare team at RAND Europe and outside partners such as the Institute of Public Health at Cambridge University, Brunel University and Ernst and Young.

EIM researchers have been involved in work for the Health Foundation looking at ways that practitioners can improve the quality of health services; together with Ernst and Young. They have also been involved in evaluating pilot programmes for the DH that provide an integrated approach to the provision of health and social services; and the team together with the Work Foundation and Aston Business School contributed significantly to the Boorman Review looking at health and well-being of staff in the NHS.

Local

EIM researchers have had a productive relationship with the Local Better Regulation Office (LBRO) (more recently renamed the Better Regulation Delivery Office, BRDO). The first project involved RAND Europe in developing an impact and outcomes toolkit for use by local authorities, published in 2010. The toolkit supports local authorities in making better assessments on the impact of their activities and is currently in use by close to 100 local authorities. The researchers also assisted the roll-out of the toolkit by conducting ‘train the trainer’ sessions and workshops across England.

A subsequent project awarded to RAND Europe EIM researchers was to evaluate the Primary Authority scheme, also run by LBRO. The main aims of the evaluation, completed in 2011, were to understand better the challenges for businesses and Local Authorities participating in the scheme, and to develop a clear picture of whether the scheme provides value for money.

Building on the success of the earlier work, BRDO asked RAND Europe to do a more specialised piece of work to support the local measurement of impacts and outcomes arising from delivery of local regulation in six areas of age-restricted sales (alcohol; tobacco; knives; fireworks; sun beds; and gambling). The resulting toolkit was published in August 2013.

EIM also works with the Third Sector to improve performance management and strategic planning of organisations as exemplified by projects on measuring performance with Tommy’s the Baby Charity and on strategic planning with the UCL Library.